Format for Graphic Designers

Third edition of a book originally published in 2005.

Modern design practice has a multitude of tools at its
disposal. Layout, typography, colour and images are
all critical in differentiating one design from another
and relaying information, but an often underrated and
underused tool is that of the format itself; the physical
presence of the piece.

Format is often overlooked because of its almost
exclusively utilitarian nature. This, and the existence of
many generic formats, means that format is something
that many designers do not realise they are thinking about.
The format of a piece of design provides a physical point
of contact with the user that affects how we receive both
printed and online communication.

We are familiar with a wide range of formats, mainly
for ergonomic reasons: a poster needs to be large enough to
be read from a distance; a stamp needs to be small enough
to fit on an envelope; a book needs to be large enough
for text to print at a readable size, but small enough to be
held comfortably in the hand. Although printed matter is
often predisposed to be of a certain size, shape, extent and
weight, designers often use format to vary these and add an
extra dimension to their work.

This is the third edition of this book, originally
published in 2005 under the title of ‘Basics Design: Format’.
In revisiting the work contained in this book, it is apparent
that the world has changed a lot in that time. We have
become more digitally focused and format changes are
reflective of this. We now consume more news digitally,
e-commerce has become ever more prevalent, and
websites, rather than being an ‘add-on’ or after-thought,
are often the basis of a design.